Overview of Trip - Pictures to follow

Hello all,

I don't know if anyone is still reading this or not, but I will post anyway. Where to start?? We arrived in Nairobi about 10pm and we driven to Mark and Camille's house. Mark heads the Eleos project, but lives in Nairobi. It had been raining so the electric was out, first chance to use our headlamps! :) We flew from Nairobi to Lokichoggio Kenya on a very small plane. It's hard to explain why it was so small... it held about 18 people.. but like the aisle was only about 4 feet high. Poor Justin could hardly get in.

Loki is kind of a final outpost place. It is close to the border of Sudan and as desolate and remote as it is, when told where we were headed the locals would reply... "oh very bad. That is the bush!". I'm thinking... and what would you call this?? :) The local tribe in Loki is the Turkana. I would have loved to taken pictures of them. They were fascinating... beautiful purple robes, women with layers and layers of necklaces... but they would not allow ANY pictures. I tried to be sneaky... but no way.

We stayed at a place in Loki called Camp North, it is like a hotel/hostel. Each person had their own little cabin. This is where we were treated to things like scorpions and spiders in the rooms. The food was wonderful and it was a nice place to stay. At Loki airport we boarded a Russian made cargo plane with all 7 tons of cargo that was allowed. The group at this point included the five of us from Ginghamsburg, Mark, Julius (a pastor from Kenya working for Village Care), Philips ( a pastor from Nigeria working with Village Care), Dave who works for IDEAS and lives in Tunisia, Don who lives in Kenya and does pastor training.

Only Mark and Justin had been to Turalei previously, so we were all a bit anxious for our first view. As we were descending for a landing on the dirt strip, we could see people heading toward towards the plane already. Once we landed and the cargo hold opened, we were swarmed. Of course, Mark and Justin know people, but we were all warmly welcomed. Speaking of warm... I had a thermometer with me (until our return through Kenya when I traded it for a wooden elephant, but I digress). Each day was about 126 degrees Fahrenheit. The shade averaged 110. It was hot and dry. When the plane opened it felt like someone had turned a furnace on. Our first view was all the beautiful people, with huts and blowing dirt in the background. The people are tall and thin with the blackest of black skin and the most amazing straight white teeth. Most Americans pay allot of money to get teeth to look like that!!

The kids (and many adults) LOVE having their picture taken. So much so that it is a problem. There was no such thing as a candid shot. Even from 100 yards away they would notice my camera if I started to raise it. At the unloading Mark wanted a picture of the supplies being unloaded. I could NOT get it. Finally Kendall started to sing Broadway tunes at the top of her lungs to draw the people away so I could get a few shots of the supplies. Great Voice, Kendall. :)

We were lucky as there was a truck in town (Justin said last year vehicles were not available). We were able to rent the truck to carry our supplies to the compound. Good thing. I can't imagine how long it would have taken us to get 7 tons of supplies the 3/4 mile to the compound on donkey carts. We walked to the compound (Eleos project has a piece of land that has been donated to them) with a parade of children following us. If you have seen the movie The Constant Gardner you will understand. "How are you?", "How are you?"... seems to be the most English many of them know.

We walked carefully over the dry cracked ground, watching for the huge thorns. Don or Dave stepped on one and it went all the way through his hiking boot and into his foot. And these kids are running around with NO shoes. People came out of their huts (called tucols, please help me if you can spell it correctly) and stared and waved. Our first view of the compound was a fence line that was random sticks unable to keep out anyone, including the wandering goats and cattle, and a small tucol. It looked forlorn.

We immediately began set up of the Safari tents we had brought with us. These are large durable tents that should last a number of years. The will remain at the compound so that as other teams come in to work (medical teams for example) they will not have to carry in tents and other living supplies, but only their medical supplies. The tents were a bit of work to get up, even after we had done a few... each new one seemed to present unique challenges. We were hot and exhausted by the time we had finished. Luckily, once the sun goes down at about 7:45 there is no light and no reason to stay up, so early bedtime became standard. To be continued...